


so far from where we've been

by Cinnamonbookworm



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Canon Speculation, F/M, Friendship, a lot angstier than i'd intended it to be, arrow season 4 spoilers, based on the trailer spoilers, the trailer in which oliver has felicity's lipstick on his lips, when laurel is in their house asking them to come back to starling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4738724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe there is a weird sense of irony in the situation at hand.<br/>Maybe that's why Laurel is having a hard time opening the door.<br/>Because childhood dreams don't just fade into obscurity, and sometimes, even when you've moved on completely, emotions are still attached to these dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so far from where we've been

**Author's Note:**

> i screamed when i realized laurel was going to be the one to bring them home, and then even more when i realized she was in their house. i've meta'd multiple times on tumblr about how teenage laurel wanted the whole domestic suburban thing from oliver and he didn't, and i think it's strangely fitting that she gets to be the one to pull them out of it, because oliver's grown enough to know he wants that now and laurel's grown enough to know she can be happy without it and I'M SORRY I'M JUST REALLY EMOTIONAL OVER LAUREL LANCE'S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND THE DYNAMIC THESE THREE HAVE RIGHT NOW

Laurel Lance stands in the driveway and looks up at her childhood dreams.

She should’ve called ahead. The thought occurs to her only as she looks at the lights coming from the house in the fading sun. They’re doing something. Something that most definitely will be ruined by her barging in and telling them they’re needed back in Star City.

She’d disliked the name at first, having never really warmed up to Ray, and frustratedly remembering Tommy’s sacrifice being commemorated with nothing but a page in the paper and a funeral service, but it’s grown on her in the past few months. It seems fitting that the city has a fresh start when she does.

The thought of Tommy does not help her courage. No thoughts are helping, actually, especially because the shadow of the suburban house looms over her as great as the Queen Mansion had the first time she had ever come over to Oliver’s house.

It’s different this time, however. This time she is not carrying three too-heavy textbooks and wondering whether or not he actually wants to study with her. This time her feet are firmly planted on the ground and she’s carrying the weight of ruining someone’s happiness. This time the only kiss she’s wondering about is one she may or may not end up interrupting.

Laurel takes a deep breath, thinks of Thea, and begins to make her way up the driveway.

The hedges are trimmed and the lawn seems recently mowed, the scent of freshly-cut grass wafting over her. Everything seems newly painted and it’s all doing something to her insides.

She’s not jealous, per se, not really. These last few months have been some of the best of her life. She wouldn’t trade them for the world. But there’s a part of her hurting nevertheless, and it’s a part of her she’d thought she’d shed long ago.

Because once upon a time there was a young girl who looked at Oliver Queen and wanted nothing but a suburban white picket fence house and 2.5 kids with him. Now, the thought of that gives her a feeling - part nausea and part headache -  because there is no way to repair the damage that has occurred in the past nine years. Once, she’d circled houses just like this one in catalogues and planned out her wedding and the names of their children, in some attempt to give imaginary balance to a relationship that was full of none.

She lets her fingers trace the railing on the two steps leading up to the door, and hears laughter coming from inside. Felicity’s mostly, but every now and then the deeper chuckle she hasn’t heard in years reaches her ears as well. Laurel can’t help but let out the hint of a smile.

She’s happy for her friends, she really is. They deserve this. She doesn’t think she’d ever seen Felicity smile as big as she had when they’d last parted ways. And they’re obviously doing well, seeing as the only barrier between her and the inside of their house is their screen door, which is unlocked.

Laurel can barely believe Oliver feels safe enough to not lock everything a thousand times, especially with how overprotective he is of Felicity, but this relaxed attitude to things may actually do him some good. God knows he needs it.

She rings the doorbell.

“Five bucks says that’s the pizza!” She hears Felicity’s voice coming from inside the house.

“You know I could’ve made dinner.” Oliver protests, and Laurel can practically see her friends’ expressions.

“Uh uh. If _I_ can’t make dinner, you can’t make dinner.”

“Even if it’s that casserole you really like?”

“Even _then_. Come on, we need to pay them.”

“Together?”

“Yes together. Take that stupid grin off your face before I _mph-_ ”

That’s around the time Laurel decides she’d better just open the door because this could take a while. But, just as she puts her hand out to open it, Felicity comes rounding the corner, fuschia lipstick slightly smudged and a wad of cash in her hand. Which she promptly drops as soon as their eyes meet.

_“Laurel?”_

“Hi.” Laurel says with a quick smile that feels entirely too forced. “Can I come in?”

The question takes a moment to register with Felicity, and the screen door separating them definitely feels like like some portal between worlds. Laurel’s slightly afraid that, when she opens it, she’ll get sucked into that world of complete domesticity she’d so yearned for when she was younger. Oliver and Felicity’s happiness is not something she’s a part of, nor something she wants to interrupt, but sacrifices must be made.

Even if said sacrifices involve her living out a childhood fantasy from the outside looking in.

“Yes. Definitely. Sorry, just let me get the door.” Felicity’s words are rushed and choppy, like she can barely believe what is happening. _Laurel_ can barely believe what’s happening. She barely has time to ready herself before the screen door flies open and she’s looking into a house she has no place in.

And then Oliver comes around the corner, and she’s looking both of them in the face with the knowledge she’s about to ruin whatever bliss they’ve built up while they’ve been away.

“Felicity what’s going on?...” he asks, words fading as their eyes catch on each other’s. Oliver may have lost his constant vigilance over safety, but she knows he’s still excellent at reading body language, and might have figured out why she’s here already.

“There’s something we need to talk about.” Laurel says, trying to keep her tone as level as possible, despite the nervousness that accompanies this entire ordeal.

They let her in.

She’s not sure whether or not to take off her jacket, since the ocean breeze is fairly chilly, and all their windows are open, but they don’t really seem to mind when she keeps it on, hands buried deep within the pockets of the brown leather.

They have furniture.

The thought shouldn’t strike her as so odd but it does. They have furniture that they must have picked out together at an Ikea. Furniture that Oliver probably insisted on putting together with his bare hands, or it possibly could’ve been Felicity. Laurel doesn’t really know; she hasn’t seen enough of their dynamic as a couple to get a clear reading.

It’s not as sparse as she would imagine a house Oliver designed to look, but not quite as cluttered and colorful as one she would imagine for Felicity. It’s just… normal. They’re so normal. She bets they have weekly dinners with other couples and talk about taxes and the economy and the weather and anything other than resurrected sisters and people who are calling themselves Ghosts.

The two of them sit down on this big mahogany couch that looks equal parts practical and cozy, Felicity leaning her head against Oliver’s shoulder, and Laurel takes a seat on the white arm chair next to it, crossing and uncrossing her legs as she tries to figure out how to begin this conversation.

She’d planned the entire thing out in her head on the drive over, but all of that had flown right out of her head the moment she’d seen the house.

Because this neighborhood is the epitome of _white picket fence._ Her childhood dreams must have been set here, and she’s not entirely convinced that she’s not still dreaming. Oliver’s constant smile in the presence of Felicity is slightly unnerving, and Felicity’s utter sense of calmness is so different from the high-strung woman she’d become friends with in the winter that it’s really not hard to convince herself that all of this is some sleep-deprived dream.

Felicity suddenly sits up with the same energy that once filled her when she’d hack a firewall. “Sorry! I forgot to ask you, do you want anything to drink? We have coffee and cider and we actually got this espresso maker the other day that…”

“I’m good.” Laurel tells her.  She can barely stomach her own choices right now, let alone any of the things they've bought together. The things she’s about to ask them to leave behind.

“Are you sure?” Felicity presses, “because I’m sure you must be thirsty after that long drive. Did you drive here? Did you _fly_ here?”

“I drove here.” Laurel replies with a closed-lip smile.

It’s like _they don’t understand_. And she supposes, in a way, that they actually don’t. Maybe they’ve been normal for so long that it’s not even occurring to them the reason that she’s here. Maybe they’re about to offer her one of their six guest rooms any second now. Maybe they think she’s here for fun.

But nothing about this is fun.

This entire night is going to be the farthest thing from fun. They just don’t know it yet. And the look on their faces when they do find out is probably going to break her.

Suddenly the room is entirely too hot.

She shrugs her jacket off her shoulders, trying not to wince as it scrapes against a cut on her shoulder from the other night.

“Why are you here, Laurel?” It’s Oliver who asks this, and she knows he’s not _trying_ to sound so accusatory, but it’s still coming off that way.

“Not that we’re not totally happy to see you,” Felicity explains, “but, you know, this is very unexpected and all that.”

They’re still doing it. That thing they were doing before they’d even started dating, where she finishes his sentences and translates his gruff tones into something that sounds so much less menacing, and he just looks at her like she’s his sun.

They’re sickeningly cute.

“Something has happened,” she starts, wishing she didn’t have to do this. “Everything was fine until about a month ago, when this new group moved into the city. They’re calling themselves the Ghosts. The Ghosts, they’re like nothing we’ve ever seen before: well trained, well armed… we can’t do this by ourselves.”

“What is it you’re asking, Laurel?” Oliver asks, and his tired tone is not helping her mood.

“We need the Arrow.” She pushes, suddenly getting frustrated that he doesn’t understand, because she would’ve thought he would be the one out of the two of them to get this. After all, Oliver was the one telling her she wasn’t ready for this. None of them quite have the skillset that he does. And, judging by the way Felicity’s been nodding along, Laurel’s fairly sure Oliver has no need to worry that he’s going to lose her by going back and helping.

“Laurel…” he finally starts, “the Arrow _died_ ; I couldn’t be that person even if I wanted to be.”

She registers that for a minute, knowing how he must feel about what she’s asking of him, but she did not just drive hundreds of miles for the answer to be _no._

“Do it for Thea then.”

She was hoping she wouldn’t have to pull the Thea card. She doesn’t want to be the one to make Oliver think he’d abandoned his sister when she was slowly slipping away from her humanity. She doesn’t want to let them know she can’t take care of everyone as well as she’d like to. She doesn’t want to guilt trip them into coming home, but they are needed. Thea needs them. The city needs them. _She_ needs them. She needs Felicity’s kind words and Oliver’s quiet strength and the balance they bring to her life.

She needs her friends. Even if they might not be her friends anymore after this. Because Star City really doesn’t feel complete without them.

Oliver looks at her with startled eyes and Felicity immediately leans forward, because, as she’d suspected, this gets their attention. “What’s wrong with Thea?” he asks, his voice reaching Arrow-levels of low for the first time since she’d stepped into the house.

“Merlyn warned you, when you put her in the pit, people who go into the Lazarus Pits don’t come out the same.” she pauses for a moment to gauge their expressions, and there are storm clouds brewing in Oliver’s eyes. “Thea’s been… having some difficulties. Sometimes we’re out in the field and it’s like she’s not even there anymore and someone else has taken over. She needs someone to remind her of her humanity, Oliver - she needs _you._ ”

Oliver takes it in. Felicity’s knuckles turn slightly whiter and her grip on Oliver’s hand tightens. Laurel wishes she could be anywhere but here.

“Can we have a minute to talk this over?” Felicity finally asks.

She nods her head.

 

They leave the room, to go speak in hushed tones in the kitchen, and Laurel takes the opportunity to look around.

The first thing that catches her eye are the photos on the mantle. They’ve been everywhere, these two, and seem to have taken a photograph every time they visited anything even remotely famous. Her favorite, by far, is the one of them by the world’s largest ball of twine because it’s such a tourist photo. Oliver even has on some ridiculously printed shirt that she’s fairly sure Felicity bought for him. Felicity’s wearing his Starling Rockets hat and they just look so… normal.

It’s strange that the word _normal_ seems like such a foreign thing to her nowadays. Her version of _normal_ flew out the window four years ago. Seeing them in a setting like this is so jarring, especially when she’s been so used to seeing them arguing from across a room filled with sharpened arrows.

There’s a doggy door she didn’t notice when she came in. Memories of her childhood plans come flooding in. She’d wanted them to get a cat. Oliver hated cats, but she wished and wanted anyways. Laurel shakes her head at her younger antics, thinking she could change someone to be the person she’d wanted them to be. She’d wanted to name the cat Valentina. And she’d wanted Valentina to have a purple collar.

It all seems so silly now, but she’s literally staring the wreckage of her teenage dreams in the face. If she could go back and tell seventeen year old Laurel Lance about the future, she doubts her younger self would believe her. She doesn’t know which she would find more appalling; finding justice outside the law or being happy with Oliver being with someone else. _But_ , she thinks as she looks over to where her friends have their hands intertwined on the kitchen counter, _she is, crazy as it sounds._

Little touches of the two of them are everywhere, from the photos on the mantle to the sight of their coats hanging next to each other by the door. Pink and Green. Like it could ever be anything different.

There are flowers on the dinner table, reminiscent of the bouquet Felicity had caught at John and Lyla’s wedding. She remembers the look she’d given Oliver when Felicity had walked over with it, a quiet reminder that the only reason he wasn’t with her was because of his own doing. Who would’ve thought they’d ever get here? Who would’ve ever thought _she’d_ get here?

There’s a mirror in the hallway and her reflection catches her eye. She’d slowly started letting blonde into her hair as her and Oliver moved away from each other. The tabloids’ constant reminder that “Oliver Queen only dates brunettes” had kept her in this constant state of paranoia that somehow her changing her hair would mean she wasn’t good enough for the title she’d had for years and years. To be honest, she likes the blonde. It makes it easier to get out into the field, since the wig was so much work.

It feels grown up.

She’s not the only one with different hair, though; Felicity’s blonde hair sweeps over her shoulders as she moves around the counter to latch onto Oliver’s arm. It looks professional. Ironic enough since neither of them seems to have a job.

How are they affording this house, anyways?

How long were they planning on staying here?

How horrible of a person is she to pull them away from all this?

How many nights is she going to spend staring up at her ceiling feeling guilty about this?

She shoves the thought down.

And she’s not ignorant. She knows not all of this has been utter bliss. She remembers one specific night when Felicity had called her, crying and Laurel had to keep herself from driving down and kicking Oliver’s ass, even though he hadn’t actually really done anything; they were just figuring each other out.

She knows Felicity isn’t quite as content here as she’s letting on. Remembers how shocked she’d been to hear her voice on the comms one night in July when Felicity had hacked her way into their interface from a coffee shop in Nevada. Later she’d confided in Laurel that it felt like a part of her life was missing.

Laurel didn’t ask her to come back then.

But now, now that she’s settled and seems complete, that’s when she has to ask her. It would be ironic if it wasn’t so painful to think about.

Laurel looks down at her watch. They don’t have much time. Their sources say the Ghosts’ next attack is going to be at midnight tomorrow and if they’re going to leave, they need to do it now.

She spares one more glance towards the couple before clearing her throat.

They both look up, and it seems whatever conversation they’ve been having has affected them both greatly, because she’s pretty sure she sees tears in the corners of their eyes.

Still, neither of them are looking at her with hatred, and she breathes a little easier for that, but still feels guilty about it. Because they should hate her. They made their choices and she made hers and the three of them went their separate ways.

“Just let us pack our bags.” Oliver says.

“We’ll be out in an hour.” Felicity finishes, a smile filling her face as she looks up, not at Laurel, but at her boyfriend.

 _Better make it two._ Laurel thinks.

 

 


End file.
